


chase away the darkness

by bookworm1805



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Doctor Sexy M.D., Drabble, Fallen Castiel, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post Season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 03:39:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookworm1805/pseuds/bookworm1805
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't take long for the Winchesters to figure out that Cas hasn't been sleeping. Not even a week after he arrives at the bunker Dean finds him in the kitchen at three in the morning, chewing on saltine crackers and staring at a Chinese takeout menu, eyes heavy but unable to rest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chase away the darkness

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr and now i'm finally getting around it posting it here

Castiel can’t sleep at night.

It’s filled with too many empty spaces, shadows creeping around every corner and stars blinking listlessly in the blank inky sky. He looks at the night and he feels darkness in his heart, dragging him down into dreams of fire and fear, and he wakes up with the screams of his brothers and sisters in his ear and the taste of ash on his tongue.

It doesn’t take long for the Winchesters to figure out that Cas hasn’t been sleeping. Not even a week after he arrives at the bunker Dean finds him in the kitchen at three in the morning, chewing on saltine crackers and staring at a Chinese takeout menu, eyes heavy but unable to rest.

Dean doesn’t look surprised at all. He takes the menu from him without a word, asks if he’s up for a cultural experience, and proceeds to spend the remaining hours until morning feeding him varying types of sweet, sour, and spicy chicken and introducing him to his DVD box set of a show called  _Dr. Sexy M.D_.

Cas spends the first forty minutes alarmed at the unprofessional behavior of human medical professionals before Dean explains it’s something called a “soap opera” and shouldn’t be used as a basis of comparison to real life.

Castiel then spends the remainder of the first season irrationally jealous of the starry look Dean gets in his eyes every time the so-called “Doctor Sexy” walks onscreen, though he doesn’t tell Dean this part.

He almost doesn’t notice when daybreak arrives, so enraptured with the drama unraveling between Doctors Piccolo and Wang at Seattle Mercy Hospital involving an evil twin and a surrogate mother with a fake pregnancy. It’s only Dean’s quiet chuckle that draws his attention from the screen, and as he turns to face the hunter time stops in its tracks, as if by Fate’s design herself.

Sunlight is filtering in through the high windows of the bunker, shining down on them in beams and catching on floating particles in the air. Strands of gold reflect in Dean’s hair and light bounces off the emerald chips in his eyes. His smile is stretched wide and easy across his face, more relaxed than Castiel has seen in years.

Perhaps it is because Sam is no longer undertaking the Trials and is instead allowing himself time to heal, and letting Dean feed him all the soup and broth he wants. Perhaps it is because the screen is frozen on Dr. Sexy, and Dean’s crush is not nearly as subtle as he’d like to think. Or maybe, he can’t help but hope, it is because Cas is finally here, where he’s always wanted to be but never been able to stay, sitting next to Dean with no intention of ever leaving his side.

No matter the reason, the smile starts a chain reaction inside Castiel. It strikes a match to his withered soul and sets it ablaze. Banished are the shadows and nightmares in his mind, gone is the stain of guilt on his heart. It is all replaced with this – sunshine and heat, woven through with gleaming gold and emerald flecks, slipping into his soul and curling around it like a blanket.

Time restarts, but Cas remains as he is, tucked up next to Dean with an empty box of chow mein on his lap, watching the hunter in wonder.

Dean registers his stare after a few minutes and meets his eyes. His lips curl up quietly at one end, pink and soft, and his eyelashes glow in the backlight of the sun. His arm is warm where it’s pressed next to him, freckles bright along his forearms and the bridge of his nose.

He is brilliant and dazzling, radiant in his incandescence like he  _is_  the sun, like all the splendor and warmth in the universe originates here, from this man with a fractured soul that shines brighter than the cosmos, and Castiel is as awestruck as he was the day he found his soul in perdition.

He hardly notices when his eyelids drift closed, or that the warmth next to him settles around him closer, wrapping him in a cocoon of effulgence and light. He doesn’t hear the fond words whispered into his hair or the click of the DVD player turning off. He just turns his face into the heat and lets the dawn consume him.

Birdsong permeates the quiet morning air, and the nightmares may return tonight but for now Castiel sleeps peacefully with the sun beside him to chase away the darkness.


End file.
